Predictions for the Twenty-First Century
On the coming impact of climate change and its sociopolitical consequences.
In an earlier post, I semi-poetically detailed how (1) we cannot hope for any real efforts to combat climate change under capitalism, due to the very nature of capitalism, and (2) perhaps the left — the real, socialist left — may only have the opportunity to seize political power after the impact of climate change has become impossible to ignore. I find it necessary to here lay out, in pure prose, what lead me to these conclusions.
Capitalism is Ineffective
As The Guardian put it, the ‘market’ won’t save us from climate disaster. First, concerning themselves with climate change negatively effects the bottom line of capitalists. Such a concern would require drastically changing the practices within many large corporations, and they have demonstrated time and time again that they are unwilling to do this. Exxon-Mobil, for instance, has known about climate change for over 40 years, and has chosen to engage in misinformation campaigns which have lead a large portion of the public to be skeptical that climate change is even occurring. Second, corporate lobbyists have an incredible influence upon governments, and the corporate lobbyists of big oil, for example, have lobby against any sustainability policies — and they will continue to do so. For these reasons, therefore, I remain skeptical that much will be done to combat climate change in any significant way, and we are doomed to suffer the consequences of it.
The Impact of Climate Change
In the Western World, the working and middle classes will likely bear the brunt of the socioeconomic burden of a rising sea level, a large rise in average temperature, and other environmental disasters. According to one report, damage to housing en masse will lead to an increase in the cost of home insurance — which many will either struggle to pay for or not be able to afford at all. The outdoor work which we collectively rely on, e.g. agriculture, construction, etc., will become increasingly unbearable, and the health-related consequences therein will weigh upon healthcare systems, and — in the United States — lead to a large increase in medical debt if their healthcare system is not improved in any meaningful way during the coming decades.
It is very likely that the global south will be hit the hardest by the effects of climate change. As the Union of Concerned Scientists state,
Higher temperatures are linked to almost all of climate change’s most severe impacts, including more frequent and intense heat waves, widespread crop failures, and dramatic shifts in animal and plant ranges. The world’s most vulnerable people — those with fewest resources and options — will suffer the most.
Due to their increased vulnerability, we could see 150 million people from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America displaced by 2050. Experts predict that the number of asylum seekers in the European Union (EU) will triple by the end of the century.
The internal economic, social, and political unrest in the Western World, coupled with the massively increased number of displaced peoples seeking asylum (which, I add, the Western World will be ultimately responsible for due to how much we contribute to climate change), sets the stage for political radicalization.
Radicalization: Left and Right
We already live in a time of increasing political polarization, and the coming socioeconomic unrest caused by climate change will exasperate this to its extremes; far-left and far-right populisms will become the political normal. The working and middle classes in the Western World, having suffered the most due to climate change, will become incredibly frustrated with the socioeconomic elite — e.g. corporations like Exxon-Mobil, and political parties who did virtually nothing to prevent the then-present disasters — and will mobilize in radical ways. The opportunistic media will only serve to heighten this mobilization, be it by (a) condemning it because their economic and political overlords encourage them to, or by (b) showing bias towards one form of mobilization and condemning the other. Furthermore, the rapidly increasing number of asylum seekers will further fuel the radical divide; far-left movements will likely support asylum seekers, whereas reactionary, ultra-nationalistic far-right movements will want to stop migrants from entering their countries.
In Canada, for instance, there are a number of fringe parties on both the left and the right which I predict to steadily increase in popularity during this time. On the far-right, there are a number of parties which have been created fairly recently, such as the People’s Party, which already has a large membership as of 2019, and more openly white-supremacist parties such as the Nationalist Party. On the far-left, we have the Communist Party and the Marxist-Leninist Party, which have been active in Canada for decades.
Given that capitalism is a direct cause of climate change, that right wing political parties are the primary antagonists of any climate progress today, and my general socialism, it is obvious which movement I will come to be a part of.
Read more articles like this on our website: theleftgazette.com.
